July 06, 2021

Get Your "Mad Max" on in Russia's "Silk Way" Rally


Get Your "Mad Max" on in Russia's "Silk Way" Rally
A buggy that will travel the 2021 "Silk Way" Rally | Screenshot from Izvestiya's video reporting

A trip for rugged vehicles of many types and stripes, Russia’s “Silk Way” Rally began on July 1 in Omsk.

The course, inaugurated in 2009 as an initiative between the presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, provides daredevil drivers the opportunity to push their limits across wild geography and inhospitable regions. Participants take cars, trucks, motorcycles, and Special Service Vehicles. In Izvestiya's reporting from this year’s start, one truck looks like it would even be fit to take its operators to the dump...

The race lasts ten days and spans approximately 3.5 thousand kilometers (approximately 2,175 miles). The cars cross a variety of terrains through Siberia into Mongolia along the Great Silk Road  once traversed by merchant caravans. These include mountains, forests, and fields. One of the toughest passes for the 2021 season is through the desert. The territory here is nearly all plains, which complicates navigation – somewhat like a journey at sea.

Driver Pavel Lebedev explained that participants generally travel off-road at 80/90 kilometers (50/55 miles) per hour, which comprises most of the route. “It is quite difficult both physically, because the temperature in the car can be up to 50-60 degrees [Celsius; about 120-140 Fahrenheit], especially when it is as hot as it is now in Omsk, and similarly it is difficult psychologically.”

Lebedev’s estimate may be somewhat of an exaggeration, as it has been estimated that the human body can only survive in such temperatures with “the help of a pool of water and a powerful fan,” but it testifies to the extremes of the racecourse.

But don’t let hairy descriptions of the “Silk Way” rally discourage you. If you have the ambition, sign up. This year’s participants come from nearly 40 countries to test their mettle on some of Russia’s most brutal landscapes.

 

You Might Also Like

The Little Classic That Could
  • April 01, 2021

The Little Classic That Could

The Fighting Classic Club (Боевая классика) is an informal group of teens who love old Zhigulis. They purchase the aged (often non-functioning) cars for kopeks, restore them, souping them up in their lilliputian garages, and then improvise nighttime races and rallies through city streets, in shopping complex parking lots, or on frozen lakes just outside the city.
A Race With a Heart (of a Dog)
  • March 18, 2019

A Race With a Heart (of a Dog)

Every year, people from all over the world convene in a small snowy town in northern Russia for the friendliest and fluffiest of sports events – started by an Orthodox nun in a wheelchair who had an idea... and a dog.
Tips for Russian Train Travel
  • July 30, 2019

Tips for Russian Train Travel

There may be no better way to understand Russia than spending a few days chugging across the country by train. Here are our tips for how to make the most of it.
Russia Goes Running
  • June 04, 2021

Russia Goes Running

Russia hosted the world's largest synchronized footrace at the end of May.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of our Books

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
November 01, 2012

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.

Moscow and Muscovites
November 26, 2013

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 

Survival Russian
February 01, 2009

Survival Russian

Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.

Little Golden Calf
February 01, 2010

Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

Murder and the Muse
December 12, 2016

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

Driving Down Russia's Spine
June 01, 2016

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 

About Us

Russian Life is the 31-year-old publication of an award-winning publishing house that also creates books, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955